https://secure.kentucky.gov/InventoryServices/Forestry/Seedlings
They’re sold out now but the Kentucky government sells bare root pawpaws 100 for $100. They use to use KSU’s orchard for their source but they have their own orchard now and I don’t know anything about those trees
Those in far southern zones may want to try these guys…
Whats the normal price for a grafted pawpaw? 80 is definitely high, but most of the “Mango” pawpaws I’ve seen have been 40-50 at least. Is that the norm? Never but pawpaws outside of plant sales, so I just don’t know what like the normal range for a grafted one is.
I wouldn’t get Mango there. You can find it for cheaper. That link was more for the other obscure southern varieties that they sell…and the southern seedlings.
Indiana Berry sells them for just under $30.
I bought one from them 3 or 4 years ago and it’s growing slowly, but that’s probably not their fault. I just started paying attention to it this summer.
The Gainsville #1 & 2 look interesting to me. Unfortnately there is very limited data on it from what I can find, other than from or about Just Fruit and Exotics. I might email them to find out some more info.
Restoring eden has a lot of varieties all for 40
Just curious, I know Cliff and Blake’s nurseries… Who is Ron and Ken? Are they hobbyists on the forums here? or a nursery?
Not sure the best place to put this, but I contacted an author of “Determination of Neurotoxic Acetogenins in Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) Fruit by LC-HRMS”. I contacted Robert Smith who is from the FDA to ask about the toxicity of pawpaws consumption
"I recently read your paper from 2015 on acetogenins on pawpaws “Determination of Neurotoxic Acetogenins in Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) Fruit by LC-HRMS”. I plan to grow and consume the fruit, and the fruit growing community online is split on its potential harm to humans. As a health researcher, can you provide your opinion on the risks associated with chronic consumption of the fruit (a few pawpaws a day for a few months of the year)?
Thank you very much for your help!"
And his response:
“In my opinion, it is safe to eat pawpaw fruits, but not the seeds, as long as it’s part of a balanced diet and as long as you don’t have Parkinson’s disease”
Could you please repost this on the pawpaws 2025 thread?
You generally get what you pay for in the nursery industry. You can possibly still find $30-40 grafted pawpaw trees in 2025 but from what I have seen in many nurseries, they will ship you tiny pawpaws with tiny root systems, 6-8 Inches tall, which take 1-2 years just to establish roots that can support any meaningful top growth. Survival rate is around 50-75% on these types of nursery trees. You’re looking at 5-6 years to fruit production on ones like this. If you’re a bargain shopper with (you hope) more years than money this could be ok. But if you want premium quality stock that is produced to perform and to grow and fruit rapidly, you need larger, more expensive, higher quality trees (or grow your own).
Price is usually based on size. A $30-40 grafted pawpaw tree will typically be a foot tall or less. A $50-75 tree should be taller than that. Current rates for high quality, larger pawpaw trees are in the $80-$150 range. If that sounds overly expensive, grow your own, or buy tiny trees and be prepared to pick fruit in your retirement.
Tony made a boo boo.
Cherimowest was formerly known as West. Garage West is a different pawpaw. GW tastes more like coconut according to Darren.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Tony
For those that keep asking me about what the hell Buzz is selling, I’m going off some old notes and memory - description of Ken Drabik’s (a close friend of Ron Powell and Neal Peterson) pawpaws. (And to be fair, Buzz also asks me what the hell he is selling so I might as well write this out.)
Quite a few people on this forum have tasted these pawpaws though if you do a search of my post in this thread, many of those people are tagged (not limited to @tonyOmahaz5, @TrilobaTracker, @disc4tw, @SMC_zone6, @IL847, @ramv, @Bradybb, apologies for those that I didn’t list because there is a post tag limit) so they can give their own reviews. I don’t think pawpaws can be 100% objectively evaluated. There is some subjectiveness on what constitutes firm vs soft texture and mild vs strong flavor. This is why I tend to use references to Peterson pawpaws, mostly because those are the most common reference points.
North - Larger size pawpaw similar in size to Susquehanna but trending toward mild like Shenandoah but less phenolic.
East - More flavorful than North, slightly smaller. More fruit per peduncle matures though. I think this might have Allegheny parentage.
West aka Cherimowest - tastes like Cherimoya according to @tonyOmahaz5, thus dubbed Cherimowest. Medium sized fruit. May require thinning.
Garage West - Darren originally commented to me that this taste very coconutty. It trends toward mild. It’s pretty productive. If you don’t thin, it can results in smaller fruit size.
Neal’s Nameless - Grafted tree came from Neal directly without a label. This was before Neal licensed nurseries to sell for him. Does not match bloom or maturity or characteristics of any other Peterson pawpaw that Ken owns (he has them all). Suspected to be one of the unreleased or possibly rejected pawpaws like 2-10. Large fruit. Not particularly productive, as each peduncle results in fewer mature but large fruit. Medium flavor similar to Wabash.
Mound - This one is not as dark fleshed like Susquehanna, maybe a few shades lighter closer to Wabash with a similar mid-seas ripening time. It’s a very rich flavored (imo) but also a bit wildy as I would describe it. I think it might be a cross from NC-1 with Wabash or Potomac. It’s not as large as Susquehanna but it appears to be more productive.
Front - I have not tried this. I think Ken mentioned its a seedling of something from KSU from seed he brought back from a tasting (this includes unreleased varieties) years and years and dumped into a compost pile. Several sprouted but the most vigorous one was let to grow out. It trends on the mild size. It’s still somewhat young tree, only 8 feet tall-ish. Some characteristics like productivity and fruit size are variable, until it puts on more years.
Garage North - Another new one that I have no tried myself. Ken says it’s good mild flavored pawpaw and it’s probably from seed from an existing tree like Carmelo, Central, etc… It’s too far away to be from a sucker and there is so much fruit that drops and gets throw around from the wild animals and compost, so it’s very defiantly it’s own thing.
Central - I suspect this to be a Allegheny x Shenadoah (or Shenandoah x Allegheny if you want to be specific about which is pollen donor). It’s roughly the same size as Shenandoah. It ripens along with Allegheny and Shenandoah. It has much more creamy flesh than either though. It’s the mildness of Shen with a bit of the fruitiness of Allegheny.
Carmelo - named after a friend named “Carmen” I think. Oddly enough, it does taste a bit caramelly according to several on the forum that have tried it. Fruit size similar to Shenandoah. It reminds me of a slightly less fruity Allegheny with a bit more richness. I also think this might be Allegheny x Shenandoah, or at the very least contain parentage from one of these.
Big Yellow/Big Yello - This is a large fruited pawpaw that is bigger or as big as Susquehanna when ripe. It’s not rich, not mild. Somewhere in the middle, but one of it’s most striking characteristics is the flesh color. It’s very very solid yellow. Not orange, not pale yellow. Yellow. Nothing is particularly remarkable (or bad) relative to other pawpaws that Ken has, other than the flesh color. Ken tends to be only willing to let pawpaws live (beyond considerations for taste) if they have some sort of unique trait.
Sunsprout - Suspected to be a seedling of Sunflower. Originally was Peterson pawpaw that Ken bought from Neal (I think Potomac maybe?). Grafted died and rootstock sprouted. I believe there are other posts in this thread that go into the history of this one (use search), explaining the believed parentage of this being Sunflower. In any case, it has a similar taste to Sunflower (imo).
I tend to prefer mild flavor pawpaws. Of the Petersons, I tend to only enjoy Allegheny or Shenandoah. With that in mind, my personal preference of Ken’s pawpaws tends to be Central, North, East, Garage West. West and Carmelo are good too but I’m not a huge cherimoya or caramel fan.
Awesome. Thanks for taking the time to type that all out. And I agree, this is the right thread for it. But now we at least have one specific post we can refer back to on all of those cultivars.
Ron is Ron Powell. Former president of the pawpaw growers association. He has many cultivars that exist as the only copy, because they are just that rare. Ones that KSU doesn’t even have, such as those from LSU.
Ken is Ron’s friend. Come to think of it, Darren probably has more than Ken and is probably in top five in terms of inventory of cultivars.
Few years back everyone on the forum discovered that dehydrated pawpaw makes you sick. Eating it has been a joke ever since.
I’ve made pawpaw bread with it, but that’s about as far as I would go with cooking it. I was sketchy about that, but no sickness ensued.
We have made bread and cookies but the shelf life is very short, one to two days at most. Eating any more than a small piece of cake or a couple cookies can land you in the bathroom.
We have also made pressure canned jelly that turned out very good and is one of my favorites. No issues with stomach problems with the jelly and storage life after opening, with refrigeration, is a week or more.
